


like you say you do

by quiddative



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Humor, M/M, Mild Gore, Pre-Relationship, Romance, Sort Of, Vampires, meet ugly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-21 00:27:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21290687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quiddative/pseuds/quiddative
Summary: Somehow, Shiro keeps forgetting just how handsome Lance is up close. It’s not just his deep, almost unnaturally blue eyes, or his sharp cheekbones that look like they can cut a man, it’s in his smile, his laugh, and the way he listens—like there’s value in what you say....Yeah, Shiro’s kind of maybe a little more than just smitten and he knows it, too.Shiro pines. Lance has a secret.
Relationships: Lance/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 115
Collections: Haunted VLD Exchange 2019





	like you say you do

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mooncloaks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mooncloaks/gifts).

> Happy belated Halloween! I hope you enjoy!

“_D’you hear about the latest attack?_”

“_Seriously? There was another one?_”

“_Yeah, and the police are saying it’s a cougar again._”

“_But we’re in_ Phoenix. _Those kind of animals wouldn’t just attack people in urban areas for no reason…_”

“Shiro,” says Keith, drawing Shiro’s attention from the conversation of the couple next to him. “I can’t believe _I’m_ the one saying this, but—cheer the fuck up, emo kid.” He then thrusts a red solo cup in Shiro’s face.

It says a lot that Shiro doesn’t even bother trying to deny that he has, in fact, been moping like an emo kid ever since they got here. ‘Here’ being Sigma Alpha’s annual Halloween party.

Sigma Alpha also happens to be the fraternity that Lance McClain is a member of.

“That’s not a nice thing to say to a friend,” Shiro says instead, watching as Lance regales the girls surrounding him with what sounds like a hilarious story if their laughter is anything to go by. The sight makes Shiro think of planets orbiting a sun.

“I can say whatever the fuck I want when said friend’s been staring and sighing at his crush like a Jane Austen character for the last ten minutes,” Keith shoots back, crossing his arms over his chest and raising a judgmental eyebrow at him.

“I wasn’t sighing,” Shiro argues, though he will concede to the staring thing.

Lance, who’s kind, funny, gorgeous...and a freshman. Which means he’s completely off limits to Shiro, who has the blessing-curse of being his TA.

If Shiro weren’t already aware of just how cruel and unfair life can be, the moment he saw Lance strut into Slav’s Astronomy 100 class and introduce himself to Shiro without batting an eye at his prosthetic would’ve done it. 

“Just go talk to him already,” Keith groans. “There’s nothing inappropriate about that and I know you want to anyway.”

“But it _is_ inappropriate!” Shiro manages to tear his eyes away from Lance once again to hiss at Keith. It’s not the first time they’ve had this conversation, but Shiro feels like he should protest out of principle anyway. “I’m older than him _and_ in charge of his grade. Not to mention, he already sees me twice a week. He doesn’t need to deal with me—”

“Hi, Shiro!”

Shiro _doesn’t_ jump from the interruption, but it’s a near thing. And, judging by Keith’s faint snicker, it definitely didn’t go unnoticed. When he turns around to face Lance, he has to clench his jaw to keep it from dropping to the ground.

Somehow, Shiro keeps forgetting just how handsome Lance is up close. It’s not just his deep, almost unnaturally blue eyes, or his sharp cheekbones that look like they can cut a man, it’s in his smile, his laugh, and the way he _listens_—like there’s value in what you say.

...Yeah, Shiro’s kind of maybe a little more than just smitten and he knows it, too.

“Hey, Lance,” he somehow stammers out. Takashi Shirogane, a useless gay? It’s more likely than you think.

“I’m so glad you came,” Lance tells him, blazing right past the usual pleasantries. He sidles right up to Shiro until their chests are nearly touching and brushes his hand down Shiro’s left arm.

Shiro hears someone squeak—it might have been him.

“So, what’re you supposed to be? A TA taking the night off from marking essays?” Lance teases. He grins, revealing fake fangs that look impressively real in the smoky light of the frat house.

“Maybe,” says Shiro, deliberately omitting the fact he’d forgotten it was Halloween until Matt and Keith physically pushed him out the door, loudly complaining about how they had enough of his “mopey ass”.

(For the record, Shiro can write entire _novels_ about his friends’ own mopey asses whenever they had a crush.)

His eyes sweep up to the black cat ears on Lance’s head and he smiles. “And let me guess, you’re a cat?”

“A cat _burglar_.” Lance smirks, holding up a little pouch with ‘SWAG’ written on it in black marker. It’s cheesy as all hell but Shiro still can’t help but think he’s _adorable_.

“Should I be checking for my wallet?”

“Nah, I’ll probably be after your heart more than anything else.”

Shiro freezes as Lance’s words sink in. He can barely hear Keith mutter, “I _told_ you so,” over the sudden roar in his ears. Did Lance just confess—

“Lance!” Allura, another student in Astronomy 100, shouts, just seconds before barrelling into Lance. “Come on, dance with me!” She’s already pulling him away before he can answer.

Lance shoots a heated look at Shiro over his shoulder and mouths, “_We’re not done here!_” before disappearing into the sea of bodies.

Shiro is still trying to process the last few seconds when Keith bumps his shoulder. “You know you’ve only got a few more weeks until the semester’s over, right? In case you were worried about conflict of interest and shit like that,” he says, almost in sing-song.

“Noted,” Shiro tells him before downing his beer in one go.

Keith wanders off a few minutes later for more drinks and food, but Shiro stays rooted at his little corner of the room, waiting for Lance. He tries not to think too hard about how much he resembles a military wife waiting for her husband to return from the war.

He catches Lance’s eyes a few time and his heart skips a beat each time Lance seems to start heading in his direction, but one of his seemingly infinite number of friends always pulls him back into the mess of people for some reason or another. Eventually, the crowd becomes too much for Shiro and he drags himself out the door for some fresh air.

Surprisingly, there’s no one on the back porch. It’s just Shiro and the night sky. He releases a sigh he didn’t even realize he’d been holding in and slumps against the wall. Feelings, he decides, are the second worst things about being an adult (the first is doing one’s taxes).

“What’s a pretty thing like you doing all alone out here?” a rattling voice rasps.

Shiro whips his head towards the sound. He doesn’t see anything in the darkness beyond the porch light’s scope at first, until the shadows _move_.

A woman steps out of the darkness. She’s wearing a ragged grey hoodie and a pair of frayed jeans. Shiro can’t see her face, hidden as it is under her hoodie and curtain of greasy white hair. She takes slow, halted steps towards him, but in the way a predator would when stalking its prey.

There’s no one else around and every fibre in Shiro’s body is screaming at him to _run_.

“Can I help you?” he asks, tamping down on his paranoia. She’s just an old woman, he reasons. She can’t hurt him.

Then the woman lifts her head and her eyes are glowing—sickly yellow. She smirks, revealing pearly canines too sharp and too long to be human, and _lunges_.

Before Shiro can even think to _breathe_, the woman has flung him a good few feet away from the porch and onto the cold, hard ground. She’s on him in less than a heartbeat, pinning his arms down by his head with far more strength than her thin, frail figure would suggest.

She snarls and leans forward, bringing her unnaturally sharp fangs right up to his neck. “Don’t worry,” she croons and Shiro wants to vomit as her breath—which smells of rotting meat and grave dirt—ghosts along his skin. “I’ll make this quick and painless—”

“_Get away from him, you bitch!_”

The next thing Shiro knows is the woman has been pushed off of him. He stumbles to his feet and watches in horror as _Lance_ grapples with her.

Except—Lance seems to actually be holding his own, showing off far more strength than Shiro would have expected.

The fight’s over quickly; with one last inhuman snarl, Lance bites into her jugular, ripping it out in a violent spray of blood. The woman slumps to the ground, unmoving.

Shiro...isn’t sure what he just witnessed. “Lance?” he asks.

Lance straightens up and slowly turns around. The cat ears he had been wearing earlier are gone—must have fallen off at some point during the fight—and his fangs are glimmering in the moonlight. Dark cherry red blood runs down his mouth, over his neck, and onto his costume. “You okay, Shiro?”

His eyes are glowing blue.

A laugh punches its way out of Shiro’s mouth. “Me? Yeah, _I’m_ fine. What about you? What just happened? What _are_ you?”

Lance blinks and the glow disappears. He hunches his shoulders and brings his hand up to rub the nape of his neck, looking sheepish. “Sooo, fun fact—I’m a vampire. Uh, surprise?”

Shiro glances at his attacker’s still body, recalling the conversation he’d eavesdropped on earlier. “Is she one, too?”

“_Was_. But she won’t be a problem anymore,” says Lance. “Listen, I understand you’re probably really confused and shocked, but—”

“You saved my life,” Shiro breathes.

Lance blinks again. Despite the gore, a twisted part of Shiro’s brain can’t help finding Lance as cute as ever. “I—of course,” says Lance. “I couldn’t just let her hurt you.”

“Why’s that?” Shiro’s heart is in his throat.

“Well, first of all, it may be hard to believe, but we vampires have a code about indiscriminately harming humans,” says Lance. “But—um, on a more personal and maybe selfish level, I’ve been wanting to ask you out since the start of the semester, which would be kind of hard to do if you were dead.”

By all rights, Shiro _should_ be afraid of Lance, but he isn’t. He still has a million questions he wants to ask, but only one successfully makes its way to the forefront of his brain. “Do you want to get coffee?” he blurts out.

Lance stares at him, as if he can’t believe what he just heard. Then, ever so slowly, he smiles and, to Shiro, it’s one of the prettiest things he’s ever seen—blood and all. 


End file.
